Restaurant and bar operators face a familiar challenge: margins are thin, labor is tight, and raising prices or cutting costs often does more harm than good. Yet there is a powerful growth lever hiding in plain sight, revenue per guest. The good news? Increasing revenue per guest doesn't require aggressive upselling, gimmicks, or reducing the guest experience. In fact, when done correctly using FPG's solution CheckMax, it improves service, increases employee earnings and drives profit gains. Here's what the data and frontline performance, consistently show.
In most frontline environments, performance data exists, but it's buried. Unlike traditional sales roles, where everyone knows who sold what, restaurants and bars rarely make individual performance visible or actionable.
That creates a blind spot. Operators struggle to identify:
Who their top performers really are
What those top performers do differently
How to coach underperformers effectively
One server may excel at selling premium spirits, while another turns tables faster. Strengths vary. The real gap isn't talent, it's the lack of a systematic way to analyze performance, benchmark it and act on it. Knowing someone is underperforming is one thing. Knowing how to help them improve is what actually drives results. FPG's new solution, CheckMax offers performance enhancement software designed to increase sales in restaurants and F&B outlets.
👉 Want to learn more or see CheckMax in action? Click to join the CheckMax waitlist.
This product fills a critical gap in the industry with a structured, centralized system designed to increase ticket averages, elevate staff performance in hospitality and enhance the customer experience through exceptional service delivery.
Geoffrey Toffetti, CEO, Frontline Performance Group, explains: "I think people are missing the mark in a few ways, but the biggest one is actually very simple: showing individuals how they're performing relative to their peers. In traditional sales roles, that's obvious, everyone knows who sold what. In frontline environments, that information is usually buried in the data, making it hard to identify top performers and understand what they excel at. One person might be great at selling top-shelf liquor, another at turning tables quickly. Strengths and weaknesses vary, but the real gap is the lack of a systematic way to analyze performance data, identify who's excelling or struggling, and just as importantly decide what to do about it. Knowing someone is underperforming is one thing; knowing how to coach them is another."
Many operators assume the difference between their best and worst performers is marginal. The data says otherwise. When performance is normalized for volume (excluding anomalies like supervisors filling in for a shift), the most common finding is a 30-35% revenue gap between top and bottom performers. In rare cases, top performers generate double the revenue of others.
That gap is enormous in an industry where bottom-line margins often sit in the single digits.
Put simply:
If a top performer averages $100 per guest
And a bottom performer averages $60-$65 per guest
Every guest served by the lower performer costs the business roughly $35 in unrealized revenue.
That framing changes everything, especially when multiplied across hundreds or thousands of guests.
Training matters, but awareness is the multiplier. Many servers and bartenders don't know where they stand relative to peers. They don't realize they're leaving money on the table or that they could earn 20% more from the same guests, on the same shifts, without working harder.
Once performance becomes visible, behavior changes quickly.
Importantly, improvement doesn't flatten performance, it lifts it. As lower performers improve, top performers don't stand still. A rising tide lifts all boats. The $65 performer may move to $80, but the $100 performer often moves to $110 or $115.
That's how compounding growth happens.
Upselling has a reputation problem. It often feels transactional, pushy, or uncomfortable for both guests and staff. Upgrading is different. Upgrading is experiential. The intent is to improve the guest's experience, not extract more money. Increased revenue follows naturally because guests get more value.
The distinction shows up in language:
Don't ask: "Do you want Grey Goose?"
Recommend, with a nod: "Grey Goose."
People mirror confidence. When framed as a recommendation rather than a question, guests often say yes, because they trust the server is looking out for them. The best salespeople are focused on delivering the best possible experience, and revenue is the byproduct.
One of the clearest behavioral differences between top and average performers is attention management. Average performers often deliver strong attention upfront, then disappear for 20-30 minutes. Top performers never do that. Their attention stays active. Their head is on a swivel.
Nowhere is this more powerful than with beverages.
At the bar or table:
When a glass hits empty, the guest starts deciding whether to leave.
When a drink is one-third full, the opportunity is still open.
If the average guest orders three rounds and you sell one more, you've just increased revenue by 25%.
Some of the highest performers even set expectations explicitly:
"Would you like me to refresh your drink when it gets low?"
That single question removes friction, eliminates frustration and creates a seamless experience guests love.
Not all revenue is earned, some of it quietly leaks. One of the most common examples is discounting.
When large POS datasets are analyzed, discounting patterns often reveal massive inconsistencies between employees. In one dataset, three servers were discounting more than a third of their checks, impacting 5% of total revenue.
Toffetti explains: "In one dataset, we found three servers discounting more than a third of their checks, impacting about 5% of total revenue. In a single-digit margin business, losing 5% for no good reason is enormous. When you compare that to the rest of the staff, where discounting averages 5-7%, the problem becomes obvious. Occasional discounts make sense, mistakes happen, but a third of checks signals a serious issue. It could be incompetence, system misuse, or tip-seeking behavior, but something is wrong.
What's exciting is presenting this insight clearly to managers with our solution CheckMax: "You should probably talk to George, he's discounting a third of his checks." No digging, no guesswork. It's right there," explains Toffetti.
In a business operating at 7-8% margins, losing 5% unnecessarily is devastating.
Occasional discounts are normal. A third of checks is not. Whether the cause is poor training, system misuse, or tip-seeking behavior, the issue becomes obvious when surfaced clearly and actionable immediately.
Manually finding these insights would take hours and repeating the analysis weekly would require a data analyst most operators don't have.
AI excels at pattern recognition. It can surface:
Outlier discounting behavior
Repeated voids or adjustments
Unusual item-level patterns
Emerging signs of fraud or inefficiency
Just as importantly, it does so in plain language managers can act on, without digging through reports. The result is faster intervention, better coaching, and less revenue loss.
Discretionary effort is the difference between doing enough to not get fired and giving everything you've got. That extra effort can't be coerced. It's voluntary and leadership determines how much of it teams give.
A few people will always perform at the top regardless of management. Most won't. They need an environment that earns their commitment.
Toffetti explains: "Discretionary effort is the difference between doing enough to not get fired and giving everything you've got to drive the mission forward. You can't be fired for withholding discretionary effort if you're reliable and doing your job but the people who truly excel are the ones who give more, and that extra effort is always voluntary. It can't be coerced.
"That's where leadership comes in. Frontline leaders, bar managers, restaurant managers, hotel managers, determine how much discretionary effort their teams give. A few people will always perform at the top regardless of leadership, but most need the right environment. They have to want to give that extra effort and that desire is unlocked by their direct leader, not the company, not the brand, but the person they work for every day."
The foundation of discretionary effort is trust. When leaders say, "You have to earn my trust," what employees hear is, "I don't trust you." That creates distance immediately," Toffetti explains.
Trust-first leadership looks like this:
Hire deliberately
Trust explicitly
Coach mistakes instead of preventing them through micromanagement
Communicate transparently, especially when things are difficult
For many employees, work is the most stable or positive part of their life. Leaders who recognize that responsibility build deeper loyalty, stronger motivation, and better performance.
And when trust is given and broken? That's when accountability matters.
None of this is complicated. Small, consistent improvements in the following, compound quickly:
Awareness
Service behaviors
Proactive attention
Leadership trust
When guests have better experiences, employees earn more, and owners capture more incremental margin, all without raising prices or compromising hospitality.
That's how revenue per guest becomes a growth engine instead of a guessing game.
CheckMax helps operators capture the revenue already walking through the door, increasing revenue per guest and often delivering a dramatic lift to the bottom line. It does this by teaching effective suggestive selling techniques and using automated analytics to identify trends, predict performance and drive consistency across teams.
👉 Want to learn more or see CheckMax in action? Click to join the CheckMax waitlist.
How can restaurants increase revenue per guest without upselling?
Restaurants can increase revenue per guest by focusing on service-driven upgrades, proactive replenishment, and better frontline awareness. These approaches enhance the guest experience while naturally increasing check size.
What is the difference between upselling and upgrading in restaurants?
Upselling feels transactional and often creates resistance. Upgrading is experiential-it involves recommending enhancements that improve the guest's experience, which leads to higher revenue organically.
Why do top restaurant servers outperform average ones?
Top performers are more proactive, manage attention better, replenish drinks earlier, and consistently recommend upgrades. Data shows they generate 30-35% more revenue per guest than bottom performers.
How does proactive replenishment increase bar revenue?
When drinks are replenished before glasses are empty, guests stay longer and order more rounds. Selling one additional round can increase revenue per guest by approximately 25%.
What are common revenue leaks in restaurants?
Common revenue leaks include miss drink replenishments, excessive discounting, inconsistent voids and poor POS usage. In low-margin businesses, even a 5% revenue leak can significantly impact profitability.
How does data and AI help restaurant managers improve performance?
AI insights with CheckMax helps surface patterns in POS data-such as discount abuse or performance gaps-without manual analysis. This allows managers to act quickly and coach effectively.
What is discretionary effort in frontline hospitality?
Discretionary effort is the extra effort employees choose to give beyond minimum job requirements. Trust-first leadership and clear performance visibility are key to unlocking it.
Further reading:
F&B Trends, Challenges and What's New in 2026
Boost Restaurant Revenue with CheckMax: A Smarter Way to Drive Sales and Guest Satisfaction